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Follow UsWhen play began on Day 4 in the first Test between South Africa and Pakistan on December 29 (Sunday), Kagiso Rabada had 554 international wickets to his name. He was already not just one of South Africa’s greatest-ever bowlers but simply one of the best bowlers to have played the game.
And yet, despite all that, on a bright Sunday afternoon in Centurion, it was with the bat that Rabada enjoyed the greatest and arguably the most special moment of his cricketing career, blasting an unbeaten 31 against all odds to propel South Africa to the World Test Championship (WTC) final for the first time in the country’s history.
The cricketing gods couldn’t have written a better script even if they tried. For here, you had the country’s undisputed greatest cricketer of the past decade playing out of his skin in front of a rabid crowd to rescue his team from the brink and take them to the final.
What is cinema, you ask? THIS IS CINEMA.
Chasing 148 was never going to be straightforward for the Proteas, but at 95/4, 53 shy of the target with two set batters looking in dream touch, the contest looked like it was in the bag for South Africa. At least for a brief moment.
And then Temba Bavuma did the unthinkable, committing the heinous crime of walking off without reviewing when he had made no contact with the ball whatsoever.
That Bavuma blunder had ‘turning point’ written all over it, and well, turning point it proved to be.
95/4 became 99/8 in the blink of an eye, and, not for the first time, a horror movie started to unfold live with South Africa on the verge of something special. The ‘C word’ started trending on social media. Fans at the stadium could barely believe what they were watching, and yet another heartbreak seemed inevitable for the Proteas.
It was at this point that Rabada walked out with the biggest ‘main character energy’ seen on South African shores since AB de Villiers against Australia in 2018 and produced the ultimate ‘I’m him’ performance of his career.
The Proteas had lost three wickets in five balls when Rabada walked in, yet unperturbed by the situation and the scoreboard, he clobbered Mohammad Abbas, the man who had the entire South African batting on a string, for a boundary over point on his very second ball.
Two overs later, he smashed Abbas to the boundary again - except this one was the most glorious of check drives played in the entire Test.
A single later, Rabada raced to 10 off 9 and South Africa headed to lunch with something to be optimistic about, though the target was still 32 runs away.
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Years down the line, we’ll probably find out what exactly went on during the lunch interval. But know this: on the other side of the break, the man who walked out to bat alongside Marco Jansen was not the Kagiso Rabada that averaged 11.52 in Test cricket.
Instead it was a never-seen-before batting avatar of the left-hander that everyone knew existed within him but, for some reason, had never come out in international cricket previously. It came out today.
Rabada’s batting always had a lot of flamboyance, but what he did post-lunch was truly some alternate universe Brian Lara shiz: he PLUNDERED the Pakistan seamers with the aura of a batting god.
The left-hander hit three boundaries after the interval, and all three were NSFW. No wonder Bavuma, in his own admission, was hiding in the washroom.
On 36.3, Rabada unleashed his version of the famous ‘Nataraj shot’, except carving the ball through the off-side on this occasion.
On 38.5, he launched a bullet straight over Aamer Jamal’s head, clobbering a good-length ball with such disdain that it felt borderline disrespectful.
And finally, on 38.6, he creamed one through extra cover in the most orthodox fashion imaginable to take South Africa within touching distance of the win.
Admittedly, at the other end, Rabada had another mental monster in Jansen, who showcased similar nerves of steel and unbreakable determination to take his side over the line. Yet, for the most part, Jansen was a mere spectator, with Rabada being the one who aggressively drove the side towards the win.
On 39.2, with the Proteas three away from victory, Rabada would certainly have been tempted to go for the big hit and finish it off in style. Yet even in the zone he was, seemingly indomitable, untouchable and impenetrable, he restrained himself and turned over the strike to Jansen to finish the job off. And just like that, Jansen collected a boundary to seal the deal.
In a way, things have come full circle for the Proteas in this WTC cycle.
Exactly one year ago, in their first match of this ongoing cycle, Rabada began the new campaign with a five-for against India to get the Proteas away.
A year on, the 29-year-old has completed the cycle with a match-winning 31* to take his team to the summit.
Roughly six months from now, Rabada will have the opportunity to bowl South Africa to their first-ever major ICC title, at the Home of Cricket, no less. How poetic that he’s earned that opportunity for himself by letting his bat do the talking.
